No Guts, No Glory: My Life as a Brawler, Soldier, Mercenary, Bounty Hunter, Bouncer, Bodyguard, Businessman and All-Around Nice Guy

Item# BB237

$23.00

Book Summary

No Guts, No Glory was given a 5-star review from popular book review site Readers' Favorite. Read their review below.

By Jim Bolen • Paperback • 7 x 10 • 184 pages

"People used to tell me when I was 16 years old that I would never live to be 18, then when I made it to 18 they told me I would never live to see my 21st birthday. Then it was my 25th, then 30th, and so on."—excerpted from the opening

Jim Bolen is a true American badass. He's led a life so on-the-edge dangerous that the details of it will make you insist — as everyone else has — that he shouldn't have made it through. No Guts, No Glory is the hard-knuckle first-hand account of a man whose fierce dedication to justice and fearless sense of adventure have taken him from the streets of Dayton, Ohio to the jungles of Cambodia; from leading enemy POW "snatches" in the military's top-secret Special Operations Group to being Hustler Magazine founder Larry Flynt's personal bodyguard; from squaring off nightly in a long string of "Road House"-style bar fights to becoming a South African bounty hunter, getting paid per head for each terrorist he captured or killed.

And that's only scratching the surface.

There is plenty more action as well, including an international gun-running scheme that ends badly, and business adventures that eventually make him a millionaire. Plus all the blood, guts, motorcycles, women and jail time that come with the territory.

It's all there, and well-detailed in Bolen's straight-forward and unadulterated prose — which is further brought to life with hundreds of corroborating photographs, military citations, awards and medals. If you think he's bluffing about any of this, think again.

For readers of nonfiction action and adventure, combat stories, international intrigue, and just plain Fight Club-style grit and humor, No Guts, No Glory is a must-read.

Readers' Favorite Review

"No Guts, No Glory by Jim Bolen is a fascinating book. I am ex-Army and found Jim's portrayal of the people and lifestyle in this kind of life, very accurate. In many ways, it was like reading an after-action military report, but with emotional overtones thrown it. We learn to leave the emotional parts out when we write these reports in the Army, but, of course, the emotion is there. The emotions are what drive us. Love of country, love of family, fear of failure, and the thrill of the adventure. ...

"No Guts, No Glory is my favorite kind of military non-fiction. It is a history told from the perspective of the man on the ground. Not a retired general, not an historian who has never seen action, but a man who was right there in the middle of things. I found it funny, insightful, entertaining, and realistic. Jim is a man of action, but he also has a way with words. If you want to know what a modern day life of action, duty, and service looks like, pull your head out of those exaggerated novels and read No Guts, No Glory by Jim Bolen."